Application Of Multiple Intelligences Theory In English Vocabulary Teaching

Multiple Intelligences Theory （MI）has an important guiding significance inteaching and educational field. The theory mainly contends that intelligence is thecapacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in a specific culturalor social environment. Howard Gardner formulated a list of eight basic intelligenceswhich everyone possesses. They are musical, linguistic, logical-mathematical,bodily/kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalistic. According toGardner, these eight intelligences operate both independently and cooperatively. Theycorrelate and can form unique intelligence combinations to complement each other.Therefore, each individual has a unique blend of intelligences. The theory also statesthat individual’s intelligences can be developed and enhanced afterbirth by educationand learning, each student has the potential of success.In recent years, researches have been done at home and abroad by applying MItheory to teaching activities in different disciplines to change traditional teachingmethods, to improve students’ interest in learning and to take student’s personalitydifferences into account. By integrating Musical Intelligence into English vocabularyteaching activity, it can change the traditional teacher-oriented vocabulary teachingmethods, make students active and involved in the classroom, and improvevocabulary learning. The researcher uses three kinds of Musical Intelligence activitiessuch as background music, English songs, and listening words, to carry outvocabulary teaching in Music Majors of Shaanxi Normal University. The researchadopts quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze questionnaires, interviews andtests to explore new English vocabulary teaching methods and approaches and toassess the effects and efficiency of Musical Intelligence in vocabulary learning.SPSS20.0and Microsoft Excel2003, are adopted to process data collected in theresearch. The results of the research show that, on one hand, students’ interest invocabulary at the experimental class has been greatly aroused; on the other hand,students’ vocabulary test scores in the experimental class are much higher than that ofthe control class. In this sense, Musical Intelligence has been effective in arousingstudents’ interest in vocabulary learning, improving their test performance and realizing the teaching objective.